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The brush of eyeliner was completely steady along Reko’s cheek, following the familiar motions on muscle memory alone. Dark, thick lines that dripped from her tear ducts, drawing attention to the sharp red contacts she’d already put in. RECO of Samurai Yaiba wore electric blue contacts, looking unreal and ethereal with wild accents of color. Reko of Skullnutz threw those blues and pinks away, decking herself out instead with red, black, and gold.
Just a change in image, she’d called it at the time. She wasn’t hiding, could never pretend to be someone she wasn’t. But that’s exactly what the change had been about, wasn’t it? Reko Yabusame’s brother killed a man. Dawning the same cotton candy costume as always and pretending she wasn’t changed by him felt like a lie, so she changed her body in tandem with her soul. Fishnets exchanged for leather. Furs exchanged for chains.
Blue exchanged for red.
That had been a conscious choice on Reko’s part, to purge her wardrobe of blue. It gave her some sense of control, to show herself just how capable she was of cutting off her big brother. She didn’t need him, she didn’t want him, and the last thing she wanted was for little girls to look up at the stage and associate her with a murderer. Alice was blue, but now Reko was red.
In this post-death game world, she wonders if that younger Reko had just been chasing after Alice in a different way. Discard the blue of his hair. The colors he wore for the outside world, tricking her into trust and love with his years of unwavering support. Drown herself in reds instead, trying to understand the blood that would always stain her brother’s hands. What did it matter now? Her hands were just as bloody as his.
No, she couldn’t let herself fall into that trap. Their kidnappers were the killers, not the poor saps forced into the game. She hadn’t killed anyone. Reko never wanted anyone to die.
She had never wanted Alice to die, a charred hole blown right through his torso while she was trapped unseen mere feet away. There was bad blood between them, but he stood there and took it while she let those old wounds fester. Wasn’t that just what Alice always did? He was all harsh words and empty flashiness, but still always happy to clean up after Reko’s reckless dream chasing. He’d been there for her since they were kids, and yet she hadn’t even paused to hear his side of the story.
She’d never visited him in prison, sure that he’d lay out meaningless excuses and hollow justifications. Reko wished desperately now that she had heard him out anyway. She wished that she’d sat there and listened to a million different excuses, just so she’d have a fraction of a chance to understand what he did. So that they could have been siblings again, even for just a single moment, before Alice lay broken and bloody on the ground.
The dark trail of eyeliner fell easily down her cheek, curving upwards into a practiced swoop. Barely even paying attention to her application, Reko’s gaze twitched yet again towards her phone sitting on top of the vanity. Still no responses. She let out a shaky breath, determined to stay focused on tonight’s gig. There was a show to do, and that meant there was no time to be thinking about Sou. Shin? Whatever.
When she pictured him, covered in sweltering fabrics in the middle of summer, the name that came to her lips was Sou. That’s how he’d introduced himself, and that was how she saw him. That didn’t mean she was stupid enough to miss his flinch if one of them called him that now, pulling his posture into himself in a way he never had back during the game. Reko wasn’t cruel enough to keep calling him Sou, but the name Shin Tsukimi just never seemed to fit right. That was a name for a person left behind, like she’d abandoned an uncaring RECO to rot underneath her brother’s sins.
It’s not like she ever called Sou by name anyway. He was always beanie guy, or scarf dork, or smarmy twerp. People always underestimated just how easy it was to talk around a name in casual conversation, and Sou never seemed to mind when she did. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed. Reko got the feeling that he didn’t like to think about himself too much these days, if he could successfully avoid it. Even now, it seemed unreal that she knew Sou well enough to notice such a personal thing about him.
How in the hell had she grown closest with Sou, out of all the other survivors? He was the creepy loner who always lied, always took advantage of the weak, and yet the two met up to chat with each other on a weekly basis. Why was she worried sick tonight over Sou fucking Hiyori?
Not that she really needed to ask in the first place. Reko knew exactly why they gravitated together, since he first humored her pleading request to stay in touch. Q-Taro answered her check-in texts when he could, but it was obvious that the man just wanted to forget about the whole kidnapping fiasco and pretend life was the same as always. She got together with Sara now and then to play with Gin. However, despite their unbelievable strength of character, both were still just kids. Keiji was a lost cause, if her long string of unanswered texts had anything to say on the matter.
It had taken some doing to convince Keiji to hand over his phone number after they’d escaped, not that it had stopped the man from ditching everyone entirely right after. Maybe he wanted to forget even more than Q-Taro? Reko tried not to let it feel like a betrayal, even if the feeling stabbed through her leather and wrapped like thorns around her ribs. So much for reliable Mr. Policeman, huh? He’d stay by their side all throughout the game, talk them calmly through life-threatening trials, but he couldn’t even attend one funeral for all the people they’d watch die together.
Her last messages to him floated unbidden to the front of Reko’s mind, trying and failing to suppress a wince at the memory. It was easy to let loose on someone you knew wasn’t going to respond. Hell, she was half convinced that he’d never read any of her texts to begin with. That didn’t mean it was alright to air out Sou’s dirty laundry unprompted, but she’d been stressed out of her mind all goddamn day.
You’re supposed to be the reliable detective, aren’t you?
So find Sou for me. Tell me he’s okay, because the little bastard can’t be bothered to reply. His last message to me was…
Well it didn’t look fucking good, okay?
I’m worried about him.
I’m worried he’ll do something rash.
Not that you care, after months of radio silence. Asshole.
In Reko’s defense, she was concerned as all hell. Who was she supposed to talk to about this crap? Her bandmates? For just a second, Reko let her thoughts wander towards the other side of the room where Ursheen styled her hair. Wonderful Ursheen, with her prickly smile and unapologetic fashion sense. Ursheen of few words and overflowing emotion, staying by Reko’s side even after Alice’s arrest and Stronghold moved on. Strands of neon red hair were parted carefully by a pianist’s talented fingers, though Reko could still vividly recall the days when those locks were an acidic green.
Dark green hair spiked from her head like an explosion, gone damaged and frayed from years of her frazzled stage persona. Green hair against the cheap white of a motel pillowcase, lips bruised and smile crooked with a silent challenge. Even after both the band and their relationship fell apart, Ursheen never once thought about leaving Reko behind.
That didn’t mean she’d understand. Reko already knew how Ursheen looked when she didn’t realize Reko could see, with narrowed eyes and restless worry. How could she stand to make that worse? To unload the horrible truth of the death game on those once steady shoulders? Even now it felt like Ursheen was handling her with kid-gloves, trying to make her wade slowly back into the chaos of the music industry rather than drown in the chaos. The keyboardist only had the best intentions, but Reko had never taken anything slow in her life. Not relationships, not her career, and not reminding herself how to love music. No matter what Ursheen’s armchair psychology insisted, Reko would bare her broken soul before a packed audience and they’d applaud.
A phone lit up in the corner of her vision, and suddenly it was in Reko’s hand before it even had the chance to buzz. Her makeup may have been a bit smudged at the jerking movement, but none of that mattered as a new reply flashed across the screen. It was from Keiji of all people, texting her back for the very first time since they’d all escaped together.
found him
ill make sure he gets home ok
No further explanation, no reason given for suddenly breaking his months long streak of silence. Just two plain sentences staring back up from the screen, such vivid relief pushing through Reko’s body that she nearly choked on it. C’mon dumbass, don’t cry. She spent too long on her makeup already just to end up crying it off, and Ursheen would definitely try to postpone their performance if she thought something was wrong.
Reko clutched her cellphone tightly to her chest, pulling in deep breaths to keep herself steady. How had she not realized before that it was so hard to breathe? Every lungful of air felt like a gift. A steady reminder that she was still alive. That Sou was still alive. That no matter how hard it was, or how many people they lost along the way? Damn it all, the six of them were still living and she fully planned on keeping it that way.
Normal people got coffee with their friends, right? That’s how you were supposed to do things? Reko didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing. Back in high school, when everyone else was learning how to establish and maintain long-term friendships, she’d been busy distancing herself from her peers. Reko’s days had been full of music, always glaring away any potential friends that threatened to break her comfortable bubble. Most of her information on successful friendships came from television or books, and they all seemed to agree on one thing: friends got coffee.
She didn’t think that Sou minded. He didn’t seem like the type that had many friends growing up either, each of them fumbling through this mutual blind spot in their own unique ways. So they got coffee together. Because that’s what friends did.
It was a shame Reko didn’t like coffee very much. All the same, she was happy to drown it in cream and sugar until the taste didn’t make her want to die. She tore open another paper packet of sugar as she tracked Sou’s movements, watching him return to his seat with what looked like an ungodly amount of iced espresso. The laptop bag nearly slipped from his shoulder as he sat down, cursing quietly to himself as he juggled the items.
He looked… fine. No worse than usual, though that wasn’t a very good measure for comparison. The bags under Sou’s eyes almost looked a shade lighter than usual, which was promising. He dumped the remains of a half-drunk energy drink into his espresso, which was less promising. Reko winced as he sipped the monstrous concoction with a straight face, pulling out the laptop with his free hand to deposit carelessly on the table between them.
“Sorry,” Sou muttered rather than give any sort of normal greeting. He was already hunched over his screen, barely sending a glance Reko’s way as he pulled up a few files to tap at. “Work stuff. I really needed to debug the program this morning, but I forgot to set my alarm last night. And then I had to deal with Keiji and- it’s been a morning. An afternoon.”
So, she really had gotten those texts from Keiji last night. Reko had been half convinced that was some sort of fever dream, concocted from the pits of her mind to feel less guilty about a shitty situation. As a way of convincing herself that the friendly neighborhood policeman hadn’t gone and left them all behind. She stirred her own coffee with a contemplative frown, watching the heaps of sugar slowly dissolve into the light tan liquid.
Reko wanted to ask a million different questions. She wanted to know if Sou was okay, wanted to know what happened the night before, wanted to know why Keiji had felt the need to stick around until the next morning. She wanted to know what kind of warped lens Sou saw the world through, if only to have a silver of a chance to understand her friend. She wanted to know how those two spent so much time together, and yet she somehow hadn’t been woken up this morning to see one of their corpses on the news. She wanted to know a lot of things, but Reko knew Sou well enough by now to realize he’d shut down at the vaguest hint of a probing question. He’d fall right back into frayed smirks and dismissively sidestepping, like they were going head to head in the Main Game instead of sharing a quiet afternoon together in a café.
“Get more sleep,” she said instead, leaving no room for debate in her tone. “You’re, what, twelve? These are some real important years in your development. Try getting a full eight hours a night, and maybe you’ll stop crashing at the drop of a hat.”
All that was visible over the top of the laptop were Sou’s eyes, which was certainly enough to get his feelings across. He glared violent daggers her way, but Reko just took a casual sip of her drink and hummed. Ugh, still too bitter. Was it rude to steal sugar from an empty table? Did she even care about seeming rude?
“Older than you,” he muttered like a fussy child, despite the content of his statement. “Older than Keiji. Hell, I’m pretty sure that I’m the oldest out of all the survivors.”
“Really?” Reko echoed back in mock surprise, as if they hadn’t had this conversation a million times over. She grinned at him from across the table, wild and teasing without a trace of ill intent. “That’s weird, I never would’ve pegged you as older than fourteen. You’ve just got this air about you that screams ‘smug middle schooler’ at me. Maybe it’s because you still go around drinking shit like that.”
As if to prove a point, Sou looked her dead in the eyes and drank half his awful caffeine slurry right there. Reko had never been more horrified in her life, but his resulting coughing fit made everything worth it in the end. She cackled mercilessly as Sou caught his breath, hacking for air with tears in his eyes, before they fell into a comfortable silence. This could be okay, couldn’t it? If they could still sit like this, passing meaningless jabs and enjoying each other’s company, surely they had to be alright. There didn’t have to be any reason to worry.
Until Sou broke the silence. Of course he did. He’d probably been spinning in his own head this whole time, weaving his biased perception of events flawlessly into whatever half-baked ideas he’d formed on her behavior. Maybe Reko was the only one who’d found their silence comfortable.
“Why did you send Keiji to check on me?”
Did it even need asking? Because she had no one else to ask. Because she hadn’t thought he’d actually answer her. Because Sou was always creeping closer to the edge of something dark, and Reko’s every attempt to yank him backwards was met with empty air. Because she needed to reach out to someone and there wasn’t a goddamn soul left who understood everything they’d been through. Q-taro would’ve made up an excuse not to come. Gin was just a child. Sara was more of a kid than she realized, already carrying the weight of everyone else on her shoulders without having to deal with Sou lashing out. Because she couldn’t stand the thought of losing Sou too, but she didn’t know how to stop him from disappearing.
“Because I was worried about you.” Except Reko’s worry wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to save anyone.
“Out of anyone in the world, you pick that guy?” Sou’s eyes flashed with a dark kind of current, like they used to back in the game. Back when he’d hidden his fear away with raw intensity, glaring her down like some pesky obstacle. Like she was just one of the riffraff. “You claim to be so worried about me, but then you toss Kanna’s killer on my doorstep and ask him to keep an eye on me. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
Reko winced. She didn’t know. She didn’t know a lot, but things like this were always the hardest. “He’s not-”
“Not what? Not her killer?” Sou’s sneer was wide and grotesque, pulling his mouth at an oddly inhuman angle. Fingers curled tight into the fabric of his scarf (Not the one from the game. This one was a solid red color, though she’d spotted the dotted scarf in his closet one of the few times she’d come to his apartment.) to hide their shaking. It was still weird, knowing these intimate details about Sou. Knowing that his hands always trembled when he got upset, and spotting the little things he’d do to cover it up. Fingers in his scarf, hands in his pockets, anything to hide away that tiny sign of weakness. To make you forget he was human. “He had a choice, just like everyone else in the game. He chose to kill her.”
“It was complica-”
“Bullshit. There was a right choice, and a wrong one. Dress it up as nicely as you’d like, but you know exactly which answer was correct. That’s why you voted for me.”
What was Reko supposed to say to him? That he was wrong? She’d pressed the button herself. Reko could remember a cruel echo of her own thoughts from back then, screaming in her skull that there could only ever be one option. That only a monster would choose for someone like Sou to live over a helpless little girl. If time turned back and she found herself in the Main Game again, could Reko have made that same choice nearly so confidently? Could she vote for Sou all over again, now that she’d seen more of him than the broken shell Sou had been during in the game? Now that she’d seen him laugh, heard the fear in his words, gone out together for coffee (like they both were so sure that friends did)?
Reko could circle the issue all she liked, but Sou was right. Given the chance, she’d vote for him all over again.
(But maybe this time it would’ve broken her.)
A laptop lid slammed closed with a deafening click. He was going to leave. Sou was mad and lost and damn it all he was going to leave again. He was going to walk out that fucking door, and Reko had no idea how to make sure he was okay. She didn’t know how to make sure anyone was okay anymore.
They weren’t okay. That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? Maybe they’d never be okay again.
“You wanna come back to my place?” Reko asked when he was already halfway out of his seat, ignoring the confused look he shot her way. “I think I finally worked out that song that’s been bothering me. I want to get your take on it.”
Mourning songs had a certain amount of expectation, considering what they were supposed to represent. Slow and wistful, carrying the sadness of wasted life and loved ones left behind. They were supposed to have sorrowful harmonies that broke your heart, washing over the listener as if they could carry the artist’s pain on their own weary shoulders. Minor key, unhurried pace, and vocals that called out with bittersweet emotion. For weeks following the death game Reko had tried to write something proper for the lost, only to end up with a scrapped pile of half-assed melodies.
How long would it take Reko before the lesson finally sunk into her head? She could write as much as she liked, pump out a million songs beloved by everyone, but none of them would really carry the soul she wanted. Reko could never be happy until she was utterly, unabashedly, one hundred percent, her truest self.
Her hands strummed across the electric guitar in a fast-paced rhythm, Sou staring up at the ceiling where he’d sprawled his bony frame along her bed. He didn’t glance her way, but Reko knew he was listening to every note she tore violently from the instrument. This wasn’t RECO of Samurai Yaiba, or Reko of Skullnutz. This was Reko as she really was, raw and bleeding in her grief. Clinging to the one thing she still knew would always make sense.
She sang. Reko bore her broken soul for an audience of one, pretending she was too wrapped up in the music to notice the trembling of Sou’s shoulders. Pretend she didn’t see tears dripping down his cheeks in tandem with her reckless beats.
She sang about a teacher she’d never given the chance to prove himself. A man with suspicious exterior, painted heartbreakingly kind in hindsight by the talented brush of his pupil. She sang about a boy who smiled brightly in the dark. A boy who watched his friend carry the weight of the world, and then offered to lift her up on his shoulders so she could still reach the finish line. She sang about a mysterious specter with beautiful skill. A man who threatened others and hid his truths, only to let the ground run red with his deafening cry for resistance. She sang about a woman stronger than she’d ever let herself realize. A woman who’s heart was overflowing with every emotion there was to feel, still pushing herself to move forward and chase the ghosts of those she respected. She sang about a timid little girl who lost everything there was to lose. A girl who’s broken heart bloomed over with flowers, wearing the same false smile as her brother when she walked off to the gallows. (If Sou had gasped back a broken sob at that part, she didn’t let her music falter for a moment.)
She sang about Alice. She sang about carefree days as children, and ruthless nights as adults. She sang about love, about betrayal, about second chances, about stories she’d been too stubborn to learn and mourning heartbeats to the rhythm of cheap bongos. Blood and fear and regret. Living on not despite the pain, but because of it. Because if the pain was all they had left, maybe they needed to wrap their hands into the agony and use that to heave their bodies up off the ground.
Reko was out of breath by the time she stopped singing. Sou still stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom. The silence was thick, but neither of them were running.
“Hey, Reko?”
“Mmhm?”
“Do you think my hair makes me look washed out?”
She peered over at his motionless form, raking her eyes over the dull lavender fanned out against her pillow. “Maybe a bit,” she admitted. “I can tell you haven’t refreshed the color in a while.” More silence. Reko ran her fingers down the side of her guitar, and then risked a small smile. “I think I’ve got some of Ursheen’s dye, if you want to try out a new color. I used to help Alice with his hair all the time.
Sou blinked a few times, then wiped away his tears on the sleeve of his jacket. She didn’t comment, and he knew she wouldn’t. Maybe that’s what trust finally looked like, between the two of them. “Fuck it,” he agreed, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “I don’t mind going red.”